


Just a Box

by fakebodies



Category: Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakebodies/pseuds/fakebodies
Summary: A box full of photos nobody wants to look at, and Billy’s internal narrative.





	Just a Box

It was just a box.

Though that’s how these things always start, isn’t it. Some small, innocuous thing that gets disturbed and all of a sudden the past has been spread out in front of you and you’re left with two options: shove it all away or pick it all apart. In Billy’s case, it would be easy to just pile all of the old polaroids back into the box and continue his packing, but he’s alone. There’s a tension that weighs heavy in the trailer, but he can breathe a little easier without Alan, and he needs a break anyways. His shoulder has been killing him for the past half hour, and he promises himself he’ll keep an ear out for the door even as he picks up the first photo.

It’s Alan, because of course it is— this is his trailer, after all. Except, he’s young, the smile on his face reaches his eyes, shaggy hair framing his face in brown waves. Billy’s never seen these before; it strikes him, how little they really shared with each other, and his chest aches. Or is that the puncture wound stitched shut after the Pteranodon had tried to lift him by the side? He’d been lucky. It’s a miracle he’s alive, they all said, except not Alan. Weeks in the hospital went by without a word from Doctor Alan Grant, Famous Paleontologist. Billy huffs out a sigh and lifts another photo, flipping it face-up. Another memory Alan felt was important enough to keep, piles of them that Billy lays back in the box, one by one. None of them feature him.

Can Billy say he really blames Alan? No, of course not, but he’d hoped. Foolishly, he held his breath each time he flipped a polaroid over; they’d lived in this trailer together for two years before Isla Sorna, hadn’t they? Maybe Alan had known Billy was rotten before he’d ever touched a raptor egg, though. Maybe that’s why none of these treasured memories contain him, just a smiling Alan and a handful of strangers— people Alan never bothered to tell him about. He doesn’t know how that makes him feel, as he checks the bed and floor for any last photos. One, by the toe of his boot, and Billy lifts it with shaking fingers, baited breath. What he wouldn’t have given to touch Alan with as much reverence as this polaroid-turned-saving grace, but that’s all behind them, encapsulated in Alan’s most recent documented memory.

It’s them. The student who took the picture had been near-finished with their doctorate, leaving at the end of the summer; it was Billy’s first week on the dig. His first few days with the man who makes his heart ache. They’re both smiling, and Alan is looking at Billy, not the camera— he’d never noticed before. He’d never even known Alan had kept the photograph. Billy doubts Alan will want it now; he tucks it into his bag, so even when the wounds on his body have healed he can pick the scabs off of all the self-hatred now sunk into his psyche. It’s a bitter memento, taken out of a need to relieve Alan of potential pain before allowing himself to heal. He has no right to protect Alan anymore, but it comes as naturally to him as the difference between the fossils and sandstone.

He tucks the box of photographs back onto the shelf in the trailer’s small closet and continues packing, the stale air in the trailer suddenly unbearable. He doesn’t fold any of his clothes in his haste to escape the place where he’d fallen in love, carrying his bags to his car. A few of the students come over to say goodbye to him, wishing him luck for the future; it’s laughable, nobody knows what he’s planning on doing, not even Billy. When he finally lets himself meet Alan’s eyes, he finds nothing at all. If he’d seen hatred etched on the other man’s face, it would mean Alan was thinking about him, after all. That was too much to hope for— he’s worse than InGen, like Alan had said. Inconsequential, unworthy of energy, so low on Alan’s list of priorities that the man simply looks past Billy a split-second later, squinting up at the sun.

Billy will tape the photo up on his mirror when he gets home, and his chest will ache. Doctor Alan Grant will publish another book, crediting a new grad student as his assistant. Billy will quit his doctorate program. Doctor Alan Grant will continue to make discoveries. Billy will retraumatize himself every morning, the sight of Alan’s smile as much a trigger as the screech of a falcon in the woods when Billy goes hiking. Billy’s friends will tell him he doesn’t look so good, and Billy will shrug it off. Doctor Alan Grant, existing in another universe from Billy’s, will be praised for his breakthroughs. Billy will watch the interviews on TV, and he will see how Alan has moved on, and that will make everything okay. After all, everything has always been for Alan’s sake; Billy has always trusted Alan’s judgement. Alan blames him for all of their problems— Billy will take all of the punishment.

Maybe someday he’ll pull the photograph down from his mirror and leave it in a box in his closet.

Maybe someday his shoulder and hip will stop twinging in pain at every little reminder of the Pteranodon attacks.

Maybe, someday.


End file.
